


The Haunting of Malfoy Manor

by Manu



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen, Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, Haunted Houses, Haunting, Horror, M/M, Not Beta Read, Not Britpicked, Not Epilogue Compliant
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-14
Updated: 2020-10-30
Packaged: 2021-03-09 04:55:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 10,770
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27009211
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Manu/pseuds/Manu
Summary: After a prolonged and torturous house arrest, the Malfoy family is finally ready to join society and, against all advice, they plan on doing it grandly.But something's afoot on the Manor. Something large and dark that's been there for quite some time, waiting and growing and waiting. Something twisted and wrong that haunts the night.Luckily, and unfortunately, Draco knows just the man to deal with it.
Relationships: Draco Malfoy & Harry Potter, Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter
Comments: 9
Kudos: 23





	1. The Tipping of the Scales

“So Teddy’s attending Hogwarts next year?” asked Narcissa Malfoy, putting her now empty cup of tea aside.

“Ah, yes,” replied Teddy’s Gran with a warm smile. “He can’t stop talking about it. He wants Harry to take him for his wand and school supplies already. He has said so in each letter he’s sent him lately.”

A huff came from the boy sprawled on the floor, who was reading the latest Martin Miggs.

“Reminds me of Draco,” Narcissa said, looking fondly at the boy, whose cobalt blue hair was catching the setting sun’s light that flooded the salon through the huge windows. “The house-elves used to find him playing with sticks and chasing the peacocks, trying to transfigure them into squirrels. A cause of great distress, to both the house-elves and the peacocks.”

The blond man who had been steeling himself just outside the room sighed and finally made his entrance.

“Uncle Draco!” said Teddy, getting up the floor with a jump and running towards him.

“Teddy,” Draco greeted him, his voice level. “I’ve told you, I’m your first cousin once removed.”

Teddy gave him a quizzical look for a moment. “You look more like an uncle,” he said finally with a shrug.

Something like a smile threatened to form on Draco’s face, but before Teddy even began to register it, Draco’s expression had already schooled itself into a neutral, polite mask. Draco nodded at Andromeda as a greeting and she smiled warmly at him. He stared at them all for half a second.

“Mother,” he said at last. “I just finished briefing the staff on the final preparations.”

“Ah, yes, wonderful. Thank you, Draco,” she replied.

He stood there, his hands behind his back, unsure on how to proceed.

“Are you quite all right, Draco?” Andromeda asked him. “You look paler than usual.”

“Yeah, fine,” he said, without looking at her. “I’m fine.”

“Have there been any more… incidents?” his Mother asked him.

“No, none, well…” That last one didn’t count, did it? One could hardly classify a chill down one’s spine when passing in front of a door as an _incident_ , no matter how regularly it happened. “None at all, Mother.”

“And your father…?”

“Still in his studio. Hasn’t come out since… last time.”

Andromeda looked from mother to son, intrigued. Before she could formulate the question, Draco piped up:

“Hey, Teddy, do you want to go see the er… glow-worms in the garden?” It was best to let Mother explain, or don’t; whichever she chose to be the wisest route. “Maybe we’ll catch sight of some Flitterby moths or fairies.”

“Sure!” Teddy replied at once, trampling all over his comic book on the way to the coat rack.

“Draco…” his mother warned him.

“There’s still a pretty good amount of light, and we will be outside the house,” Draco said, while Teddy was already putting on his cerulean jumper with a big T across it. “It will be fine, I promise.”

“Yeah, he promises,” Teddy said, now walking towards the entrance hall. Draco followed him, before anything else happened.

The cold air outside hit him hard, his breath immediately forming clouds of vapour in front of him. Likely not a favourable climate for glow-worms and fairies, a stray thought informed him. Never mind the fact that it was bloody October. Nevertheless, he followed Teddy on his search around the garden.

He hadn’t spent much time recently on the manor’s gardens, not even after his and his family’s house arrest had ended, but he was sure plants didn’t die as quickly and… stubbornly as the ones all around him did. To his surprise, his mother had even hired a muggle gardener to take care of them but that proved to be as ineffective as doing nothing, maybe the plants missed the house-elves.

“Can I come to your party?” he heard Teddy’s voice ask from behind a tall, dead bush.

“If your Grandma’s okay with it,” Draco replied, looking at the setting sun in the distance. The days were getting way too short way too quickly now. Goosebumps invaded his skin, and his mouth was suddenly dry. Teddy and Andromeda should leave as soon as possible, he thought, before anything happened.

“She is,” the boy replied, too quickly. “If not, I can just ask Harry. Maybe he can come too,” he added after a second of consideration.

Draco was about to reply with an energic negative and a command for them to get inside so Teddy and Andromeda could leave, when he heard it: A high-pitched scream, a tump, and the sound of something being dragged over dirt, leaves and twigs. It took him a couple of seconds to make his body move and even while he was running towards the source of the commotion he felt his legs stiff. Coldness dribbled down his forehead and a dry hammering had begun to manifest in his chest.

He made it next to the biggest tree on the property. Teddy was on the ground, struggling to crawl away from the bushes nearby; and the bushes, it seemed, were struggling to pull him in. Vines, twigs and roots were wrapped around the boy’s legs and midsection. Teddy’s big terrified eyes looked at Draco imploringly. He let out a cry when a vine finally took hold of one of his arms and gave it a strong pull, undoing all progress he had made to escape. A loud buzzing filled Draco’s head, muddling his thoughts even further. The sight of a pale face in the darkness of the angry bush made his body go slack, he caught himself with the big tree.

“Draco!”

Draco looked up, and reinvigorated, pulled out his wand.

“REDUCTO!”

He had aimed at the bush, the spell hit its target and cut Teddy free. The boy crawled away from it at top speed, panting and slipping a few times on the muddy ground.

“Incendio!”

The bush caught fire. Draco swore he heard a distant, angry cry. Then the fire extinguished on its own, way too quickly, leaving only a few ashes and a burnt smell behind.

Laboured breathing made Draco look behind him, where Teddy was on the ground, bracing his legs with his arms. Draco gave Teddy the once-over; there were only a few small cuts on his arms and some bruising on his legs. All things considered, Teddy looked fine. He seemed to be reining in the tears and pointedly not looking at Draco. He put his hand on the boy’s shoulder, squeezing a little; he was glad when the gesture wasn’t rejected.

His mother and Andromeda were there now, visibly worried.

“What happened?” his Mother asked him, while Andromeda crouched to take care of Teddy, who kept shaking his head and refusing to look at any of them.

Draco let Andromeda take charge, and stood up to face his mother.

“I think we do need help,” Draco replied, finally voicing what he had failed to inside the Manor moments ago. Thankfully, he sounded more determined than he felt. Narcissa sighed and nodded in agreement.

He looked at the almost dead trees nearby. He was almost sure they looked back.


	2. The Ask

Draco had never felt more out of place than on the muggle neighbourhood he had just Apparated to. He knew enough about muggles to be aware that his indigo robes were an uncommon sight among them, and his mid-back long platinum blond hair surely did not help matters. Granted, there weren’t many of them at this hour in the morning. A happy accident, really, since he really hadn’t thought this out at all. He normally would have inhaled deeply, then put on his best sneering expression and swaggered his way towards his destination, trying to make everyone around him feel inferior by the sheer Slytherin-ness of him. It was a testament to his state of mind, and the toll of having been on house arrest for too long, that he limited himself to merely scowling and putting his hands in his pockets all the way, trying to ignore the muggles jogging past him wearing those strange outfits that seemed to have been charmed with some variant of colourful Lumos. 

It was only when he ringed the doorbell to number 42, that the curious onlookers had seemed to realize something and at least pretended to go about their business. Draco relaxed a little, which was just as well, because the next part was going to be the tricky one. 

The door opened.

“Malfoy?” said the man who opened it. “What are you doing here?”

So far, things have been going exactly as Draco had foreseen them. That was somewhat reassuring.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Harry Potter said, and yanked him inside the house by the arm.

So much for foresight. Divination had always been his weakest subject anyway, Draco thought before tripping spectacularly on the entrance and almost falling face first. Strong arms caught him with his nose centimetres away of getting broken. The arms lifted him and helped him to steady himself. 

Draco was shell-shocked.

By the time he snapped out of his trance, Draco was sitting by a countertop holding a cup of tea. Potter was standing in front of him wearing those ugly grey pyjama bottoms and a tight black sleeveless shirt, with his much-bigger-than-expected arms crossed over his… that was much more chest than Draco was expecting to see. Potter’s skin was also much darker than he remembered seeing on the Daily Prophet lately. In short, it was all a bit much. Draco’s gaze went up to Potter’s _indecent_ shoulders, past his thick neck and then up to…

“Merlin, it’s like a dork’s head on top of a fit bloke’s body.”

Potter still wore those stupid round glasses repaired with tape that obscured the same-as-ever swamp green eyes, the same—no, worse than ever—bedhead, the same stupid nose and lips Draco remembered… But to top it all off, a ridiculous stubble. Who was he trying to fool?

“Sorry?” Draco heard him say.

Draco glared at him like—no, _since_ —Potter was slow, and then he realized what he had just said that out loud. Slower than Potter today, not a good sign.

“Nothing,” he bit out without meaning to, and took a sip of the tea. “Tea’s nice,” he said as he put it back down. He did not let go of the cup, clinging to it as if it were an anchor on a sea of awkwardness.

Potter eyed him suspiciously. Well, more suspiciously than he had been since he opened the door. His too-big-arms-crossed-over-too-big-chest stance had not changed one bit.

“My tea’s not nice,” Potter said. 

“I’m being polite, Potter,” Draco said, starting to regain his wits. “Unlike some people who yank people into their houses in lieu of a proper invitation. Tea’s wretched, by the way.”

Suspicion was replaced by irritation in Potter’s face. Draco relaxed.

“Well, if some people didn’t show up at my doorstep wearing wizarding attire on a muggle neighbourhood and that ridiculous hair…” Potter began, Draco shifted a little on his seat. “The people here already… Even when I don’t even… Never mind…” He finished lamely. Draco enjoyed seeing him act like the dimwit he was. “What do you want, Malfoy?” Potter asked at last, somehow towering over him even more.

The moment of truth.

“I need your help,” Draco said, trying to inject every word with the seriousness it required. He began to talk.

* * *

Harry was shell-shocked.

He had arrived just last night from the Caribbean, completely portkey-lagged and underfed, and had had trouble sleeping. After a lot of turning around in bed and way too much Sleeping Potion, he’d finally managed to do so. Then, under two hours later, the doorbell had rung. Cursing, he got up, put on the wrong bloody glasses and walked as carefully as he could down the stairs to open the door to one of the very last people he had ever expected to find there.

At first impression, Draco Malfoy looked much the same as he’d done in his school years. On closer inspection, however, it was evident that he was taller, although roughly the same height as Harry, and paler and _blonder_ (and what was with that ridiculous long hair?) and the angles of his face even more pronounced. He looked like a cartoon drawn by someone who just had Malfoy described to him and never seen an actual picture. Harry’s brain, despite still being in the sluggish process of waking up, took all that in and then focused on the next, most urgent, thing: Malfoy was wearing bloody wizard robes.

Harry’s eyes darted around and spotted the usual suspects taking a peek at the new arrival on his doorstep. Without thinking it twice, he yanked Malfoy inside.

After a bout of forced politeness, awkward silences and a couple of instances of nearly losing his temper, Harry finally listened to what exactly had brought Malfoy to his home. 

“This all sounds like a job for the Spirit Division, Malfoy,” he said at the end of Malfoy’s tale, pouring more tea on his guest’s cup. His own had gone cold, sitting untouched besides him on the counter. He returned to his position of arms crossed over chest. It wasn’t that he didn’t believe him, but that the whole situation was so bizarre, starting from the fact that Malfoy had come to him for help, and going all the way to the sight of the very wizardly-looking blond sitting on his kitchen, surrounded by the fridge and the microwave. It was a clash, a whiplash that reminded him of the Weasleys making the Dursley’s not-chimney explode all those years ago, or of Dumbledore simply sitting on the Dursley’s living room, glasses of wine tapping his relatives on the head.

“It all would go on public record,” Malfoy said, taking Harry out of his musings, his voice as unsteady as it had been during the whole tale. “It’s been that way ever since your friend Granger pushed those policy reforms. Mudbloods clearly don’t understand the concept of privacy, of not airing one’s dirty laundry in public. My family obviously doesn’t want any of this out there for the Prophet to put the worst spin on it. Not without the party this close.”

“Insulting my friends won’t help your case, Malfoy,” Harry said irritably. “Which takes me to my next point: Why me?”

Malfoy smiled, unnerving Harry. It was a half-tortured half-sardonic smile.

“Who else?” he said. “I mean… full Auror training, Cursebreaker experience, that stint with the Hit Wizards, all that globetrotting... Not to mention the Horcrux destroying, and Dark Lord slaying. Quite an impressive CV one must admit. You’ve been busy living up to the Our Hero and Saviour image, Potter.”

Harry felt his face start to go hot.

“I don’t…” he began.

“Am I lying? You did all that, didn’t you?”

“Yeah, I did, but…”

“Modesty suits you as well as those dreadful glasses, Potter,” Malfoy reproached him, genuinely, it seemed. The blond sit back, staring right at Harry’s eyes, his movements were more fluid now, almost catlike.

How had he allowed the conversation to shift in this way? Harry shook his head and took a sip of the disgusting cold tea, forcing it down his throat. It helped.

“I still don’t see why I should help you,” he said.

He heard a tapping to his right.

“Oh, come on!” he exclaimed, rushing to open the kitchen window to let an eagle owl in.

“Honestly, living among muggles… How do you even communicate, then?” Malfoy said, shaking his head. “Didn’t you own the Black House? That was one impressive manoeuvring of inheritance law, by the way. It should’ve been mine.”

Harry ignored Malfoy’s babbling and the mild pain he felt on his chest, and focused instead on the letter the owl had brought him. It was from Andromeda.

The more he read, the more his brow furrowed. He had always trusted Andromeda’s judgement, but this time… He finally looked up to find that Malfoy wasn’t sitting in front of him anymore. Confused, he looked around until he heard the rustling of robes on the living room’s carpet.

“What even is this thing?” Malfoy demanded once he saw him, walking towards the television set. “Why is everything pointed at it?” He looked around the room.

“It’s a TV, Malfoy,” Harry said in a flat voice, still holding Andromeda’s letter in his hands.

Malfoy let out a low growl from the back of his throat and looked at the contraption as if it had just insulted his mother and his hair.

“It’s just like a radio, but with images too,” Harry explained.

Malfoy looked at the TV sceptically.

“I don’t use it much,” he elaborated with a shrug. “It’s here for Ron and Neville, they like Doctor Who and come here to watch it and Nev takes care of the garden and I let him run whatever Herbology experiment he wants there. Hermione doesn’t like television so Ron…”

Malfoy looked at him with cold amusement, then his gaze fell upon Andromeda’s letter in Harry’s hands. Harry looked down at it as well.

“So it arrived, then,” Malfoy said.

“Yeah,” Harry replied, his mind still thinking about the contents of the letter. Well, not so much the contents as the tone of it: the thinly veiled guilt-tripping. A small part of his brain told him that he was just guilt-tripping himself. Yes, Andromeda had mentioned Teddy and the incident in Malfoy’s house, but his mind had added the “ _all_ _because you weren’t there to look after him like you were supposed to, like you promised”_ and _“I mean, this favour is the least you could do”_ parts.

“…I mean, how do you think I got your address?” Malfoy was saying, with Harry having missed the preamble to that question. “Honestly, I think that’s one of the most top secret bits of information in Britain,” his guest shook his head in disbelief and disapproval.

“Dealing with hauntings or curses or whatever it is on your house normally takes from a couple to several days, depending on the severity,” Harry explained, putting the letter aside both physically and mentally. “Do you think I’ll be done by the 31st? How bad is it, really?”

“You _better_ be done by then,” Malfoy replied. “That’s the night of the main event. And the situation’s bad enough for me to be here… So, I take it you’ll do it?”

“Yeah…” Harry said, looking down at the letter for the umpteenth time. “Merlin help me, yes, I’ll do it. Although I think you should really cancel this party.”

“Not a chance.”

They agreed to the terms of it all, with Harry refusing any kind of payment, (“I do this for Andromeda, not money,” he had said.) and arranging for Harry to be at the manor the next day, an hour before sunset when, according to Malfoy, it was when the “activity” usually hit its peak.


	3. The First Night

Harry swooped down. He was grateful for Malfoy’s Locating Spell on his compass since visibility of the ground had been almost nil for the last fifteen minutes even with the strong headlight of the motorbike on. Ever-thickening fog covered that whole area. He was about to cast another Warming Charm on himself when he saw it: Malfoy Manor rose like a black ghost ship stranded on a grey sea. His mind idly tried to place the style of the house. Victorian? Edwardian? Gothic? He had heard those terms been thrown about, but he had no real frame of reference. It certainly looked old, grand, and dark, and—he finally decided—absolutely Malfoyian. The sight sent a shiver up his spine, maybe less so because of the spectral appearance of the scene before him than because of his memories of the place.

He landed as gracefully as he could on the muddy terrain in front of the huge main gates. A figure stood before them, their wand lit. Once Harry’s eyes adjusted, he could see it was Malfoy, who was now walking towards him. He then noticed the Ministry officials at either side of the gate, impassive, looking straight ahead without acknowledging him.

“What on earth is that?” Malfoy asked, his robes dark green and his hair now cut short.

“A motorbike,” Harry replied. “It’s Sirius’.” He still didn’t bring himself to think of the vehicle as his, even though it had stopped resembling the one he had first seen during his childhood dreams or in the—as Ron had dubbed it—Battle of the Seven Potters. It had stopped looking like that after the many modifications Arthur and himself had done to it. He’d gotten rid of the sidecar, for one.

“I know what a _botormike_ is,” Malfoy replied, annoyed. “I mean your clothes,” he clarified, looking up and down at Harry repeatedly.

Harry rolled his eyes and huffed, not giving Malfoy any more of an answer than that. The leather jacket was also Sirius’, he had found it in a trunk in his room in Grimmauld Place, back when he thought he could handle to live there. He suspected he now had worn it more than Sirius ever did. It was pretty snug by now, even with some sloppy Extension Charms added to it, one more and Harry was sure the thing would burst at the seams. He also wore his work jeans and boots, they had been with him all through his Peru and Egypt trips.

Malfoy sighed. “At least park the tasteless thing where people can’t see it.” Without another word, he turned around and walked straight through the gates as if they were made of black smoke. Harry vaguely wondered if the Dark Mark charm on the gates was still on, and if he would simply collide against the iron bars and if that was Malfoy’s intention.

“I still can’t believe you’re going ahead with it,” he said once he had caught up with Malfoy, motorbike by his side. The gates had allowed him entry. “If things are as bad as you say.”

“We have taken precautions.”

“Oh?”

“We’re holding the party in the less er… haunted part of it,” Malfoy said as several floating lanterns on the sides of the path up to the house began to turn on as they passed by. Their light didn’t make the atmosphere any less threatening. Harry’s hand held his wand firmly. “Well, that’s reassuring,” Harry deadpanned, turning off the light of the bike with the other hand.

“And, well, I brought you along, didn’t I? To save the day and all.”

“Best decision you’ve made so far, to be honest.”

“It would seem so,” Malfoy replied quietly. Harry’s retort died on his lips upon hearing what he thought was a sincere tone.

They walked in silence the rest of the way.

Near the entrance to the house, after stashing the bike away on a shed and retrieving his ever-useful rucksack from it, Harry saw carriages being unloaded by bored wizards using levitation charms. The sight of activity was refreshing after that silent and dreary walk. Dreading to go inside, Harry turned to Malfoy.

“Show me where it happened,” he said, in a well-practiced business-like tone, the one he had found made people do what he wanted. “The incident with Teddy. It was in the garden, I recall you said?”

Malfoy blinked rapidly, making Harry smirk.

“Sure,” the other man managed.

They walked towards the trees and bushes that were too naked even for this time of the year, in Harry’s opinion, and up to the base of a huge tree.

“That’s weird,” Malfoy said, frowning.

“What is?”

“I burnt that bush yesterday, the one that attacked Teddy,” he explained, pointing at a very much not-burnt bush. 

“Fancy gardening spellwork?” Harry wondered while, against Malfoy’s alarmed look, he crouched near the offending plant. “Neville’s talked about…”

“No, none of that,” Malfoy said. “All garden maintenance and the like was done by the house-elves on the daily.”

“Was?”

“The point is that we don’t use specials spells for it or anything like that.”

Harry stood up and looked around. The vegetation did seem like that of a house being severely neglected, with bushes and hedges having grown in complete disorder but then had been deprived of water and sun for ages, the grass was a pale brown mess of mud and weeds running amok, and even those looked devoid of life. He began to walk slowly and aimlessly. If one were to ask his opinion, Harry would’ve said that the whole place looked dead, but he was no expert. It was obvious there were no such spells in place. A feeling of sadness began to envelop him, something akin to be standing in the middle of an old, disused graveyard, although mixed, he realized, with the dread of being watched… being watched by the dead.

Harry looked up at the top of the leafless trees, their dark and twisted branches cutting through the grey fog like black spidery veins on sick, pale flesh. He shivered, the cold air creeping under the several layers of clothing until reaching his skin. Taking one step closer, he raised his hand to touch the cold dead trunk of one of them, without taking his eyes off the branches above. He wasn’t sure if it was the images of veins and blood that his mind had conjured up, but he could feel the faintest of heartbeats under his palm. As if blood or something else, something thicker and darker and ancient was coursing through it. As if it was part of something buried deep within the earth, as if all the trees around him were. A light, almost imperceptible buzz began to fill the air.

“HARRY!”

He jumped.

“Merlin, Teddy,” he said, after his soul came back to his body. “You—… What are you doing here?”

Teddy grinned at him.

“So much for Our Hero and Saviour,” Malfoy snorted, leaning against the very tree Harry had been touching, seemingly without a care on the world. Harry resisted the urge to warn him or take him away from it. All the boldness with the bush from earlier now gone.

“I wanted to see you,” Teddy said, taking Harry’s attention away from Malfoy. “And I wanted to be at the Malfoys’ party, and watch you defeat a ghost. I never get to see you do any of your heroics, I only read and hear from others about it and you never tell me about the good ones.”

Harry sighed.

“Is your Gran okay with this?” he asked, looking around expecting to see her walking towards them. “Didn’t you get almost eaten by a bunch of apparently haunted vines? Is she here?”

“She’s fine with it. Says you’re the best protection one can possibly get,” Teddy shrugged. “And she’s not here. She had boring adult stuff to do. A ‘most urgent matter.’”

Harry was about to argue with him but ultimately decided it was best not to. Pathetic as it probably was, he rarely won an argument with his godson. He found it difficult being strict with him, even when needed, so he usually left that part to Andromeda. It all too often left him feeling completely unequipped for the role of godfather, even after all those years.

“Fine,” he said, choosing to believe that Teddy wouldn’t be there if Andromeda hadn’t approved of it, that he wouldn’t even be able to travel there without her assistance. “But stay out of the way of the investigation,” he added half-heartedly.

“Sure,” Teddy replied with a non-convincing shrug.

Harry turned to Malfoy.

“Let’s go inside, then,” Harry said.

“Follow me,” the other man said, walking towards the house. They obeyed.

A barrage of memories assaulted Harry as soon as they got inside. Standing in the middle of the entrance hall, he could practically hear Hermione screaming, Greyback snarling and Bellatrix laughing and laughing maniacally. A pang of pain formed in his chest picturing Dobby coming to their rescue. He hoped he wouldn’t have to go down to where he and his friends had been kept captive all those years ago.

Their steps on the polished stone floor echoed all through the house. Harry saw spurts of activity here and there, mostly members of staff getting everything ready for the Malfoy’s party, but the vastness of the building overpowered any presence, making them feel like the only ones there. Streams of fog-filtered light poured down from the huge windows, illuminating their path through the manor.

“Where do you want to start?” Malfoy asked.

“Take me to where you will be holding the party,” Harry said.

Malfoy raised an eyebrow.

“Really? I told you, that’s where almost nothing has happened so far,” he said as if explaining something to a child much younger than Teddy. “That’s the whole reason we’re having it there.”

“If you insist on going ahead with the party then I need to protect the place,” Harry replied, pointing at his rucksack.

“Alright, then,” Malfoy said, leading them now to the right through an ample corridor. Harry noticed the change in the atmosphere almost immediately. It was still spacious, but he stopped feeling as if he was on an abandoned building. He hadn’t noticed how tense his body was, but he relaxed more and more as they walked towards their destination. The painful memories were a distant blur now, his mind presently focused on the problem at hand. “Here we are,” Malfoy said.

“I’d never been here before,” Harry heard Teddy comment in a soft voice, and saw him standing in the middle of the huge room, spinning to look at the silver decorations hanging from the ceiling, sparks of reflected light dancing on their surfaces. He seemed transfixed by it all.

Harry completely understood him, the place _was_ beautiful. The grey light from the exterior bathed the place in a way that didn’t seem to occur in the other parts of the house, it made it seem welcoming rather than instigating the terrible loneliness Harry had experienced just moments before. It was helped by the exquisite, floating lanterns strewn about the place, the fire in them warming the room just right. The furniture was cosy enough, none of the sharp angles or black leather of the rest of it he had seen so far.

“It’s the most recent addition to the manor,” Malfoy said, the tone in his voice the most relaxed Harry had heard until then. He didn’t even try to make a crack of Teddy and Harry’s dumbstruck expressions. “Finished last week, just in time for the party.”

“You Malfoys really go all out on your parties, huh?” Harry commented without expecting an answer, reaching for his rucksack and opening it. He rummaged through its depths, made deeper by an Undetectable Extension Charm courtesy of Hermione, until he realized he could just summon what he wanted with his wand. It still wasn’t his first instinct, even after many years of using the bag, or of being a wizard.

“What’s that?” Teddy asked, rather apprehensively, once Harry had produced what he was looking for.

“A phylactery,” Harry began to explain, showing them the artefact. It looked like a kind of lantern, a glass cylinder with metal at each end and with a white crystal where the flame should be. Its circular base fit comfortably on Harry’s palm. “Think of them as really strong amulets, or better yet, portable patronuses, only for defence against far more than dementors and lethifolds, but not as effective against these.”

“So not portable patronuses at all?” Malfoy said. Harry shot him an irritated look.

Refusing to reply, Harry went about his work and exited the room; he crouched and placed the phylactery just outside it, on the floor in a corner near the big wooden doors. It would be hidden when these were fully opened. He placed a hand on each end of the artefact and twisted the top one, then tapped it twice with his wand. The crystal inside lit up with a blinding white. Harry stood up.

“It feeds on my magic,” he explained to a very interested Malfoy and a slightly frowning Teddy. Both were crouching next to the artefact looking at it. “As long as I’m around the house it should protect the room from a large range of dark magic and creatures. I need to place a few more around the room, some on the outside. I brought just enough for the one large room; they’re pretty rare and thus hard to come by.”

“I’ll pay for them,” Malfoy offered immediately, still looking at it.

“No, it’s fine,” Harry said. “I told you I don’t want any of your money.”

“Filthy Malfoy money, right?” the blond said, his mouth a firm, slightly curved line. His grey eyes shining with the amulet’s light.

“Right…” Harry said without any conviction, trying to read Malfoy’s expression. “I’ll get to work then.”

By the time Harry was finished protecting the party room the sun was completely hidden behind a hill. Some quiet fell on the Manor’s grounds and inside the house.

“You said they feed on your magic,” Teddy began, his frown still not quite gone, pointing at the last amulet. They were outside the house again, looking into the party room through a big window, under which Harry had placed the last of the protective objects. “If you leave them on for too long, will your magic be… gone?”

Harry smiled, both to reassure Teddy and to compliment his inquisitive nature.

“No, no,” Harry said. “It’s not like magic is a finite resource. I—”

“It can be,” Malfoy interjected, realizing something.

“Well…”

“What?” Teddy asked, looking from one man to the other.

“If these things work as I think they do,” Malfoy paused to look at Harry, who said nothing. “Well, think of them as needing lifeforce instead of magic. This is reckless, Potter.”

“It’s really not.”

“You’re going to exhaust yourself to death.”

“Of course not.”

“Conjuring a patronus is taxing enough and now you’re here powering a dozen of them at a time.”

“I thought you said they weren’t patronuses at all.”

“Potter.”

“Listen, I know what I’m doing, all right?” Harry said, cutting. “I appreciate the concern. I’m really very touched, Malfoy.”

“Harry…” Teddy said.

“It will be fine, Teddy,” Harry said, softening his tone. “They don’t pull much out of me, only when actively protecting against something… So unless uhm… your cousin Draco here has an infestation of dementors the size of Azkaban and they all attack at the same time I think I can handle it, all right?”

“All right…”

Harry smiled at him, and put a hand on his shoulder, squeezing it lightly.

“You’re cold and it’s dark out,” Harry said. “I think we all better get inside, and you to a safe place. No, don’t give me that face, Teddy. Come on.”

Malfoy led the pair of them to one of the guest rooms on the third floor and then went to talk to Lucius. He said he’d come back for Harry to begin checking out the place.

Inside the room—more spacious and grander than any room Harry had ever been in—, Harry produced a few more phylacteries from his rucksack, to Teddy’s surprise. They were much smaller than the ones from before, but once he activated them they shone just as brightly. He began putting them around the bed. Teddy observed him carefully, something clearly weighing on his mind.

“I thought you had used them all,” Teddy commented.

“These ones were for the Malfoys’ bedrooms,” Harry said, setting up the last one. “But since you’re here…”

“Oh,” Teddy said. “I’m not sure—“

“They’ll be fine; don’t worry. Malfo-… Draco is probably going to want to supervise me the whole time and seemed positively appalled at the suggestion that he needed my protection while he sleeps. His mother’s not home and his father… well, Mal-.. Draco said not to worry about him.”

“I thought they couldn’t leave yet,” his godson observed, looking away from him and staring at one of the amulets.

“Right, their arrest is up until the night of the party, actually. Very dramatic,” Harry said a shade scornfully. “Well, I think you’ll find the Malfoys are quite resourceful,” he added as evenly as possible, aware that they were Teddy’s family too.

“I heard my Gran say they can’t even Apparate in or out without permission. Their Floo is monitored too,” Teddy supplied thoughtfully, his hand hovering near the phylactery.

The gesture made Harry aware of his magic, his lifeforce, powering the amulets. His body, his centre felt lighter and the rest… scattered beyond himself. He was at the core of a web of energy; he felt like a huge, dangerous spider hunting his next meal: waiting, alert, on edge. Not pleasant but not a horrible feeling either…

“Harry?”

Teddy’s face, wearing a careful and curious expression, was right in front of him.

“Sorry,” Harry shook his head. “I spaced out. What were you saying?”

“I asked if we’re trapped too.”

Good question, Harry thought. He wouldn’t have put it quite so dramatically but still, good question.

So, he tried to Apparate out.

“Bloody hell!”

Next thing he knew he was lying on the floor.

Harry sighed.

It had been as if he’d crashed against a wall running at full speed.

“Are you all right?” Teddy asked while helping him up. Harry did not miss the smile threatening to form on his godson’s lips.

“You knew that would happen, didn’t you?” Harry sat on the bed, feeling sore all over. Some spider he was…

“What?” Teddy wasn’t good at feigning innocence.

“It’s not like he’d know you’d be enough of an impulsive prat to just try and Apparate on a potentially Anchored place,” Malfoy said while leaning against the doorframe with his arms crossed and a mocking expression, yet he looked like he’d come running from the other side of the house.

Anchored, right… Harry had heard about that. Just like Hogwarts was these days. Not even brooms could fly without express permission from a professor he had heard… Harry wondered if part of the rarefied air of the place was related to that. He hoped so.

“Oh, he knows I am,” Harry said, looking at his now-very-much-smiling godson. He got up. “Right, so… I better get to it. Ghost hunting time.”

They said good night to Teddy, who looked way too awake and alert to get into bed anytime soon. Harry locked the door behind him with a quick, wandless Alohomora.

“See, after that display I’m not sure you’re up to it,” Malfoy said, already walking away.

“You seemed pretty sure back in my house. Impressed with my resumé and all…” Harry caught up to him.

“Yeah, well, we’ll see…” Malfoy said, avoiding Harry’s gaze now next to him. “Maybe after you fail miserably, I’ll show you how it’s done. I had a good hang of it back when I rescued your godson in the garden. The activity even calmed down a lot after that. A couple of strategically placed spells…” He dramatically dusted off his hands.

Harry did not mention that Andromeda’s letter had said he’d used Incendio and Reducto _right next to Teddy_ (in passing, surely she didn’t mean anything by it, surely she didn’t refrain herself from writing “please save this fool from burning down the bloody house”). If that was Malfoy’s idea of strategic…

“Thanks,” Harry said instead.

Malfoy stopped abruptly.

“What for?”

“Saving Teddy.”

“Oh. Ehm... No problem…”

Harry half-smiled. Malfoy shook his head and muttered something unintelligible.

“What’s that?”

“I said let’s go,” Malfoy said, leading the way. “Tour of the Haunted Mansion, come on.”

The Manor was dark and miserable, just as Harry remembered it being. The thick mist outside was making it so all you could see from the windows were grey walls of filtered moonlight. Sure, that didn’t help matters, but there was something else too. It felt neglected and abandoned. Most of the sparse furniture—sparser than Harry remembered—had a layer of dust on top.

“Where are the house-elves?” Harry asked, remembering an earlier conversation.

“Gone,” was all Malfoy said.

Harry did not press further, but he archived that detail next to the rest of the oddities. Like the fact that there were no portraits either. He noticed that one while walking along a corridor with bare walls on both sides. There had been portraits there, the outlines were clearly visible…

He stopped.

“Malfoy…”

Malfoy, ten steps ahead, turned around.

“Yes?”

Harry didn’t know what had made him call out. His mind had been preoccupied thinking about the house, but his body…

Oh.

He took a step to the right.

“Potter?”

A step back, slowly.

Then to the left.

“Are you practicing for the ballet, Potter?” Malfoy asked, his arms now crossed.

Harry took a step forward, going back to where he’d started.

“Cold spot,” he said, his breath a puff of vapor.

“What?”

Malfoy walked towards him.

“Here,” Harry said, taking a step back and then grabbing Malfoy’s hand and positioning it just right. Malfoy’s eyes opened wide.

“You feel it?”

“Wh—oh…”

Harry, realizing something, let go of Malfoy’s hand.

“Sorry.”

“It’s fine,” Malfoy said, his hand, now with a slight tremor, still extended. “So, what does this mean?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Splendid,” the blond said lowering his hand and then giving a couple steps back.

“I told you, I’m not some sort of… haunting expert.” Harry said, opening his rucksack. “But I did come prepared.”

He produced an old-fashioned Muggle camera. It still had a “Property of Colin Creevey” label on it. Harry looked at it for a moment. A small sigh escaped him.

“Look over there, same direction as me,” Harry instructed, pointing right in front of himself. Malfoy turned around obeying him, but not without a half-hearted huff in protest.

Harry took a few steps forward so the cold spot was behind him, then took the camera and pointed it over his shoulder towards it. He took a couple of pictures without looking back.

“Well?”

“I’ll develop them tomorrow,” Harry said. “Tonight’s just for gathering data and evidence.”

Harry looked up to find an apprehensive Malfoy looking past him.

“Will it show… it? The ghost or whatever it is?”

“Well, the film didn’t melt so it’s not a basilisk,” Harry commented, mostly to himself, looking again at the label. “But with the right potions, yeah, I’m sure something will show up. From what you’ve told me it’s probably a poltergeist,” he hanged the camera around his neck.

“What, like, Peeves?” Malfoy said, unbelieving. He shook his head. “Not a chance. Seven years around the most famous and powerful poltergeist in Britain, I think I’d know if it was anything remotely similar.”

“You said—”

“I know what I said: displaced objects, levitating glasses, small footsteps in the night. It’s not about what it does, it’s about what it… feels like…”

“What does it feel like?”

Malfoy looked away.

“Malfoy?”

The blond murmured something.

“Pardon?”

Another indignant huff.

“Wrong.”

“Sorry?”

“It feels wrong. It’s like… you can’t trust your own home, like everything’s familiar but at the same time not. You recognize every room, every object in the room, every person in the room but they’re all… wrong. Like there’s a predator, a dark beast stalking around every corner, waiting for a moment of hesitation, waiting for when you stop thinking about it. Then you suddenly can’t pick up a quill, a pair of scissors or even a small book you dropped because you have the thought that they’re not yours, like you’re the invader here. You’re trespassing and you don’t want to get caught because the worst things in the world will happen if you do. And the people… you can’t trust the people either. They’re going to tell on you. Or… or they’re not them, but of course they are, you’re just being stupid. A light exploded last night while you were reading and made you drop your book and now you’re being the same stupid idiot who couldn’t pick it up so it lay on the floor all night. Then the person talks to you because you’ve gone pondering again and did… they always talk like that? Did they always move like that? Is that concern or they’re onto you? So you leave without replying and go back to your room and your book’s not on the floor, it’s on your bedside table sitting straight up waiting for you, but that couldn’t be because you locked the door, you lock all the doors now… You can’t let the thing that stalks you and watches you and thinks about you at every moment get you... So no, it’s not a bloody poltergeist.”

Harry fought hard the impulse to put his hand on Malfoy’s shoulder and of saying something comforting. Not that he would’ve had any idea what to say. Malfoy sniffed very slightly, looked down, and walked away with a grunt.

“Come on, then,” he said.

“Right,” Harry replied, and followed him.

The rest of the tour went on mostly in silence. Harry tried to memorize the layout of the house for later, and solo, inspections, but it proved fruitless. The manor was vast, dark and confusing. Harry swore they had reached a room at the end of a hallway, only to leave it via the same door they’d entered and being greeted by what looked a completely different hallway. Malfoy didn’t seem to notice, and Harry did not bring it up.

After a light supper in one of the sombre kitchens, in which Harry had been surprised seeing Draco handling a few cooking utensils with ease (not to mention even offering to whip up something quick for Harry), they sat in the half-lit space in silence. Malfoy was lost in thought, seemingly struggling with something. Harry used the chance to look at him closely. When he wasn’t posturing, filled to the brim with arrogance and contempt for most everyone, Malfoy still had this elegance about him, Harry thought and hated himself a little for it. He hated himself a little more for this not being the first time he’d thought such things. Before, he’d been lucky since the man always had said or done something utterly vile right when Harry’s thought began to stray in those unwanted directions. But he was quiet now, quiet and still and with a solemn expression Harry had seen little of before. Their sixth year at Hogwarts came to Harry’s mind immediately, followed by the few times he’d seen him during the war. He’d seemed small and pathetic then, just a kid. A man now, the concern in his face lend him a gravitas Harry found himself puzzled by.

He tried to force himself to look away, but in that dark, dreary and downright depressing place, Malfoy was the only sight that give him anything resembling light, however brooding his face looked. He stared at his right hand, long and veiny and firmly gripping his wand. Harry’s breathing became just a tad shallower. Images of his Auror training years began to trickle in… Memories of late-night parties with his mates… Echoes of those unwanted contemplations came forth clearer than they had in years.

An old well of shame and guilt was opening up inside him the more he stared, yet he couldn’t look away. It felt so right to keep looking, and so wrong.

“Let’s get on with it,” Malfoy said at last, standing up and breaking the spell.

“Oh. S-sure,” Harry said, standing up as well, clumsily. Malfoy looked at him oddly with those icy grey eyes that had been hidden in shadows.

He followed, staring surreptitiously all the way, his actual mission half-forgotten.

They were standing on the drawing room, by the secret door down to the cellar. It was well past midnight. The darkness from below looked back at them. Harry shone his wand’s light down the steps, no use.

“We’ll check that part out tomorrow,” Malfoy said. “It’s late, and nothing has happened. Maybe I did get rid of it,” he said, the last part almost hopeful.

“All right,” Harry agreed. He had no desire to revisit the place. The unfathomable darkness of it and the potential of some kind of horrors were last on his list of reasons.

Harry was lying in bed a few minutes later, after Malfoy had shown him to his room on the third floor, conveniently next to Teddy’s. The thick fog and clouds had relented a smidge, and he could at least see the fuzzy outline of the full moon and the hazy silhouette of what he assumed was a dead tree. Delicate silvery light and murky, ever-changing shadows came from the giant, imposing window—so different to the ones in his comparatively tiny house—and lend the room an unworldly atmosphere. He was lying on the finest sheets he’d ever seen or touched, and the world’s most expensive-looking blanket was on top of him. It had been unknown to him than going to sleep could be quite this… expensive, this comfortable. The ominous and ethereal light and the feeling of the exquisite beddings somehow strayed his thoughts back to Malfoy.

He let the thoughts take over. He’d never been more at ease or comfortable at night. Shame and guilt seemed foreign, strange and fleeting in that moment, like they had never been a part of him. Full of thoughts and feelings and memories he hadn’t realized he’d been saving, he closed his eyes, caressed the sheets with one hand and then just as slowly began caressing himself with the other, starting with his naked chest, then lower and lower and lower…

A noise.

His eyes snapped open. His whole body seized for a second and then froze.

The first thing his eyes were drawn to was the door. It was closed. He looked around, no one else was in the room. It was only then that, catching up with the rest of his awareness, he realized the noise had been distant. He relaxed but remained alert.

A coldness began enveloping him. A coldness that had only been on the periphery of his perception ever since he arrived, but it had taken a firm hold of him now. A scrapping noise below. He suddenly felt glued to the bed, unable to move. A shiver coursed through his entire body.

A thump. Only now he noticed the constant creaking of the house, the constant settling of it, never quite at rest… A whole house turning and tossing as he did most nights before falling into a light, uneasy sleep. Only, for it, sleep never comes. Its eternal unrest masked by the sounds of everyday life, left ignored, unattended, free to seethe and plan.

He managed to turn to his side, away from the window and towards the door. He exhaled vapour, just the once, as another unidentifiable sound was heard. A cold feeling pulsated from deep within his chest.

Malfoy’s face recounting his experiences appeared on his mind’s eye. That must be it. He closed his eyes, trying to erase the image. Bloody Malfoy…

A creak, much nearer than the others.

The feeling of being watched, studied, assessed. The sound of something sliding. He covered himself fully with the blanket, the cold was outside him too.

An even closer creak. He should open his eyes, turn around and see… What would he see? What nightmares Malfoy’s story would conjure up, only to vanish a second later? Only to realize nothing was there, nothing had ever been there. An empty room with only a stupid idiot covering under the blankets.

Or it would remain there, solid. Ready to pounce…

He did not turn around. He did not open his eyes.

Half-disbelief, half-fear.

The creaking had stopped. The cold however did not.

He breathed in and breathed out, purposefully and evenly. He saw his thoughts, acknowledged them and put them away for later. He turned the settling of the house and the now louder sound of the wind into a lullaby.

Bit by bit, his busy consciousness slipped away, his racing thoughts decelerated and came to a stop. After a while, sleep came. The house remained unquiet, sleepless.

His dreams were of flashes of familiar images, half-remembered words and feelings, never staying on any one thing for too long. No narrative to it. Unusual. He would not remember this. He would forget this the moment that a long terrified scream cut through from what seemed to be the waking world.

Morning light assaulted him the second his eyes opened. He sat up.

“What the…?”

Harry had looked down at the bed. A mess of mud and twigs was at the end of it on top of the covers. He got up, all sleepiness gone from him. He checked the door. It was firmly locked, his charm intact. A familiar cold hit his back, making him turn around.

The window was half open, and long muddy footprints went from it to the bed and back out.


	4. Breakfast and Letters

Harry took a moment away from his thoughts and ruminations about last night and earlier that day to take in the scene: A beautiful morning outside, bright sunlight unimpeded by clouds streaming down a gigantic window, him sitting at a small, circular table in one of the kitchens next to Teddy and Draco Malfoy, eating the breakfast he, Harry, had just prepared for them. Next to him was his correspondence and an open copy of _The Daily Prophet_. Teddy was gorging himself with food and Draco was looking at the boy with amusement and mild worry.

A small, contented sigh escaped him.

He’d imagined a scene like this many times, as early as in his Hogwarts years, however embarrassing that was. Sure, the scene in his head had not been exactly like this: Instead of Draco there was Ginny, of course, and joining Teddy there was his own, small army of children with alarmingly messy red hair. They were all laughing and joking and recounting their plans for the day. He saw himself joking inappropriately about something in the paper, and Ginny admonishing him through her laughter… A quick kiss, one of their children suddenly throwing food at another…

His idea of having children had changed with time. Now, after having spent years seeing Andromeda with Teddy, and considering his poor efforts at helping her raise him, he didn’t think he was ready for children of his own. He loved Teddy fiercely, so having him there was all he really needed on that department. And as for Ginny…

It was that last thought, and the bite of his now cold toast and the taste of his terrible juice that began unravelling that brief moment of happiness.

He discovered, again, that he still missed her terribly and felt horrible about the whole situation, but that at the same time the image of Draco Malfoy there didn’t bother him that much. Malfoy not bothering him much, now that was a disturbing thought, which coupled with last night…

“Honestly, Potter, who messes up juice?” Malfoy finally said, looking him in the eye for the first time since the earlier incident. He looked away quickly.

All the blond git needed to do was keep his pretty mouth shut, Harry thought, between annoyance and relief at not having to relitigate his opinion on Malfoy.

He didn’t answer him.

“The food’s good,” Teddy jumped in at his defence, although Harry didn’t hear him, nor he heard Malfoy’s response.

He was thinking about last night again, the cold in the room, and the cold pulsating from within himself, the noises… How had he managed to fall asleep in the midst of all that? How did he not notice when something—an undoubtedly physical and tangible something—entered his room and sat on the foot of his bed? In that moment he hadn’t noticed, but it hadn’t been his controlled and even breathing the thing that had helped him fall asleep, not completely. A wave of exhaustion had slowly overpowered him, an exhaustion that didn’t really match with everything he’d done that day.

Then there had been Malfoy’s scream that woke him up. Once he’d quickly checked his own room and Teddy’s (who had been already fully awake and alert, his bed already made, and waiting anxiously for him behind the locked door, asking him what had happened), he went to check Malfoy’s, wand in hand.

It had been a strange scene: Malfoy, looking paler than usual and breathing heavily, was standing next to his bed, or rather, next to his mattress, which lay right on the floor without any support. An old book lay on top of the covers. After an awkward exchange Harry really did not care to remember, and while he examined the rest of the room, Malfoy explained that the book had fallen on top of his face, waking him. He had been reading before falling asleep and then had put it on the floor next to him, so someone…

Harry was barely listening. Malfoy’s enormous wardrobes had no doors; they had been taken off their hinges, leaving the inside exposed. They were empty. Same went for the rest of the room’s furniture: all the doors were removed; all the drawers were on the floor; a wooden chest was on its side, its lid missing. All the clothes were on the floor or on top of chairs, sofas and tables. Malfoy looked embarrassed now. He mumbled something that sounded like an excuse, took the book and left the room in a hurry.

“He’s really scared, huh?”

Teddy was outside the room, peeking in.

“What do you mean?” Harry asked.

“Well,” Teddy began, entering the room now, looking around. “There’s no place for anything to hide.”

The boy went to one of the windows which, Harry noticed, had no curtains. He peered outside.

“I wonder if we should do the same…”

“Did you sleep alright?” Harry asked him, joining him by the window.

“Yeah, until Draco’s scream,” Teddy replied, scanning the muddy ground and the dead trees outside. “Maybe you should’ve insisted on that whole protection thing for him.”

“Oh.”

“I don’t know, maybe then it would have been my screaming waking both of you up,” the boy surmised, stepping away from the window and taking one last look at the room. “You just can’t win sometimes, I guess,” he said with a sigh. “I’m hungry,” he declared and left the room.

Harry stood alone by the window, mulling over what had just happened. From there, he could see his room, there was mud all along the wall up to his window. He got dressed to go outside and take a closer look, but the neglected and well-treaded grounds offered him no clues.

Then there were the letters…

“Anything interesting?” Malfoy asked at the breakfast table, nodding towards the _Prophet_ and the open letters as if he’d just read Harry’s mind. Which was possible, he was still pants at Occlumency.

“Oh, well, uh…” Harry replied, seeing that the letter at the top was Hermione’s. “Hermione’s pretty happy. Another big donation for S.P.E.W. came in.”

“Right, her house-elves thing…” Malfoy said, looking supremely bored. “I meant something related to my case. You said you were going to ask for her input.”

“Yes, right, uh… Well, she said she can’t really say anything substantial just yet. It sounds like a regular haunting to her…”

“It’s not,” Malfoy said. “I’ve been to haunted houses; half of all pureblood’s homes are haunted to some degree. And I don’t mean places full of chatty, ridiculous ghosts and cackling poltergeists like Hogwarts, I meant proper hauntings.”

“I see… Well, she really didn’t say anything more. She offered to look in some books, and ask her friends at the Spirit Division but you said…”

“That it’s none of their business,” Malfoy supplied. “So, Granger has nothing?” he didn’t wait for an answer. “Can’t be too surprised, no use asking a… muggleborn anything on these matters.”

Harry huffed, then leaned in with interest. Teddy had finished his food and was staring at them with curiosity.

“Then who else have you asked? I couldn’t possibly have been your first option,” Harry wondered. “What do your pureblood friends experts in hauntings and all things magical think? Surely they’ve visited you frequently, experienced something.”

“You were.”

“I was what?”

“The first option.”

“Oh…”

“And as for friends…” Malfoy took a pause and looked away, his arms were crossed. “They did use to visit. They just... stopped.”

“Why?”

“Probably didn’t want to keep being associated with me or my family anymore. Death Eaters in house arrest… Avoiding Azkaban after a long, stalled trial, avoiding actual consequences, again… They’re thinking of their reputations and I can’t really blame them, I would’ve done the same thing,” he finished with too much fervour in Harry’s opinion.

“Good thing you don’t think much of damaging my reputation, then,” Harry quipped.

"Potter, you could walk into the Ministry of Magic in the middle of the day, pull down your pants and take a big, steaming shit on the Atrium's floor and they would leave it and put a commemorative plaque next to it."

Teddy laughed hard at that. Harry’s face felt hot, and his stomach was queasy.

“Don’t they write?” he asked when the embarrassment passed.

“All our letters get intercepted and checked before they reach us, as you could guess by the sorry state of that owl that brought yours earlier.”

The barn owl had looked rough when it arrived. Teddy had insisted on keeping her there so it could recover. The animal didn’t protest much, she seemed to be in some sort of shock and was now in Harry’s room.

“And don’t worry,” Malfoy said. “They wouldn’t dare read yours. They were properly closed, right?”

“Yeah, I think so…”

“There you go. They probably saw your name on them and creamed their pants in excitement. Frankly, I’m surprised they didn’t send something along for you to sign.”

Harry scoffed, but his mind wandered towards the fan letters that did manage to reach him at his home. The kind of things people would send…

“I should get going,” Malfoy said, standing up. “Lots to do.”

“Right, the party!” Teddy piped up. “Can I help?”

“I suppose…”

And Teddy followed him out of the room. Harry was left with more questions than answers.

He took the letter below Hermione’s. It was from… an acquaintance at the Auror Office. He scanned it quickly, having read it already.

_…so pleased to hear from you again…_

_…You know you can count on me, of course,... keeping tight-lipped…_

_…first thing related to that property I could find…_

_…archived on Solved Cases…second page is badly redacted… dodgy spell…very irregular…_

_…Hoping to see you again…_

He burned it with a flick of his wand and focused on what really mattered: the attachment…

**AUROR OFFICE**

**MINISTRY OF MAGIC**

**INCIDENT** **REPORT #** **153.34.** **ᚨ** **ᚼ** **AO -** **ᛝ** **89**

Page 1

DATE: 2007-12-26

INCIDENT TYPE/OFFENSE: UNIDENTIFIED DARK MAGIC/HAUNTING/OTHERS

REPORTING AUROR: SMITH, Z. #672/89

PERSONS

ROLE: Witness

NAME: Parkinson, Pansy

FLOO ADDRESS: ᚼᛒᚤ

NOTES: Known association with Death Eaters sympathizers, previous criminal record. (See LV.78-7b & X.23-6)

OFFENDERS

N/A

PLACE

Malfoy Residence (ᛑᚡ - monitored), Wiltshire, England.

Page 2

NARRATIVE (via: Quick-Quotes Typewriter)

Ms. Parkinson reports sightings of ███████████████ ████████ at the Malfoy residence where she was staying during Christmas. ████████████████████████ ████████ ███████████████ ███ ████████ eyes watching her████████ ████████hundred small hands████████ ████████████████ rage████████████ ███████ ████████ ███████ bruisings appeared ██ ███ █████ ██████.

████████ ████████ ████████ ████████ciding to investigate th████████ ████████following the co████████down ██████████████████████████████████████████████████ even further ███████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████

████████████████ ███████████ █ ████████████████ █████ ███ absent-mindedness with fits of hysterical crying. No evidence of stimulant or mind-altering potions found. Regular alcohol was involved, by her own admission.

████████ ████████ ████████: “I lit my wand an████████████████████ost impenetrable█████████████ ████ ███████████████████.███████████████████████” Pauses to compose herself. “█████████████████████████████knew it was them. I just knew it. But they wouldn’t face me, they were standing in front of the wall their back to me. Why were they facing the wall? ████████ They couldn’t be there. They couldn’t possibly ████████ ████████ ████████ couldn’t breathe and████████████████████████o ran away and they tried to gr████████ wasn’t their faces. They were wron█ █ ██ ████████eyes███ ██████ ██████████████████████████ couldn’t feel m██████████████████████jum███████████████”

██████████████████████████████████████████ I know what a [expletive] boggart is like, you [expl████████. Riddikulus didn’t wor██ ███████ ███████████████and I’ve been to hau██████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████,███████████ ████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████ ██████████

██████████████████████████████████████████ arrived home █████████████████████ still watching her ████████████████████████████████████whispers███████████████████████████ decided to report, against Dra█████████████didn’t tell██████████████████████████████████████████████████

█████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████ almost passing out████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████

ACTIONS TAKEN:

███████████████████████████████mediwizard called██████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████ obviously a spell █████████████████████ a plot to reduce sente████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████ did not recall specifics██████ ███ follow-up interview ████████ refused to go b██████████████████████████████████

███████████████████

APPROVING AUROR: MCLAGGEN, C.


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